The bearded eye-roller

The Hubs has been dealing with a lot of high stress situations at work lately. One of the side-affects is that he has a heck of a time getting a good night's sleep. Case in point; up at 2:am Thursday night wandering the house. Since he couldn't get back to sleep, he decided to just go into work at 3:30. It was odd to get email from my husband's work account at 4am. I hope he sent a few to his boss at that time in the morning...

I wanted this weekend to be all about him. I wanted to ensure that he had a relaxing weekend, and got lots of sleep. It started off rather shakey, because as we were out on a road trip Saturday, he got a call from the office. Since we were close, he asked if we could just go together and he promised it wouldn't take long. Ummmm, four hours later we resumed our weekend.

I decided to end the weekend with something that we both always really enjoy, but don't do often enough; and that is to watch some of our music DVDs. We have a growing collection and really enjoy them. I figured that saying about music soothing the savage beast must have some truth to it. Sidenote: No, he hasn't been savage OR a beast (dammit! thinking that could have been kinda fun..)

At first, he didn't seem too excited about the idea but he ended up really enjoying himself. About half way through the Brother 1 McDonald concert, I asked him why he didn't pull out the air guitar (something that I find absolutely hilarious), and he actually said, "I don't know the song well enough."

I was on the floor! What? You have to *REALLY* know the song to play air guitar? The man has never played a real guitar in his life. If he'd of played real guitar, I could understand wanting to get the chords right or something, but it's all F.A.K.E:!:

I think he's going to be teased about this for many, many days....

PS- he had THREE full night's of sleep in a row. Yep, I know what I'm doing!

I was just thinking about a Halloween tradition I used to have with my dogs. I dressed them up in costumes every year. Now before you go calling PETA, I'll have you know that they loved getting dressed up. My husband used to tell me that it scared him that it would even occur to me to do such a thing (yet he married me anyway. WHAT was he thinking?)

What is so wrong with this? Don't they look like they're having a good time?



Sadly, Missy died last year after a long illness and I gave Cleo to another family because she was making Missy miserable.

I guess I won't be scaring my husband at Halloween anymore.

My third child/husband's (boy) best friend is here. They're playing x-box golf. I'm on the computer reading blogs and such. Suddenly I find myself in a mushy mood. "Go home husband's best boy friend", is what I'm thinking! ha ha.

Anyway, I had a 2.5 hour commute to work yesterday. I decided that I was getting a bit too stressed out over being late, so popped in a CD that I haven't listened to since the early dating time with my husband and me. The time before I knew that *this* was real and was really going to happen. Wow. It made me smile the rest of the way to work. It was Bryan Adams. I think I played that CD every time I went to his house when we were dating. I was totally into the Bryan Adams compilation CD I'd made at the time. The lyrics just spoke to me.

So, as I fought that 2.5 hour commute, I remembered how much I internalized some of the lyrics in the songs in those early days.

1. I'm ready To me, that symbolized how I really was ready to give up the "I'm never going to love anyone ever again" stage in my live
2. I will always return The lyrics are so about long distance relationships (at least to me!). Beautiful music and lyrics.
3. Nothing I've ever known Pretty much sums it up.

I dunno... I really thought I was done with love and all that stuff. Even when I felt things for my husband in the beginning, I fought it. I didn't want to get hurt; I've had a lifetime of that. He fought it too. He's not had the greatest of experiences either. Boy, did he fight it and was very honest with me about it. The thing is, I took him at face value. Was I surprised when he proposed. I honestly didn't expect it to happen. I certainly NEVER pushed it.

Yet, here we are. We've been living together for 13 months, married for 5 of of those months. I still get giddy about seeing him. I get butterflies when I hear his car pull up in the gravel driveway. We still have those "I can't believe that this is STILL this wonderful" conversations with each other frequently. I'm not kidding when I say we tell each other this at least weekly. At least twice a month we sit on the couch for a couple of hours and tell each other how much this relationship means to us. Who knew? I sure didn't. When I'd see couples who seemed to adore each other, I thought it was fake. Now I know better. We just click. It's SO easy. I wish I'd known how easy it could be and had the strength to give up on those awful relationships I'd had in the past. I'd of saved myself a heck of a lot of heartache. But then again, I have to think that I wouldn't fully appreciate what I have now. Catch 22 I guess.

So, a 2.5 hour commute turned into something really wonderful. I was able to go back in time and look at myself back then and smile at all the worries I had about getting too close. I was able to look at the actions that my future husband showed me (vs- the words that said he would never get to this place), and nod my head. I was able to tell that scared person I was, "ya know, it'll be ok- everything is really going to work out. You just wait and see..." I'm smiling now thinking about that . Too bad we can't all have a crystal ball, huh?

That same night, I had a night class for Hospice. I got home at 9pm. He heard me drive up the gravel driveway and greeted me at the door. He held me for a while and then kissed me and told me to go get comfy. So I did. I came out to find a plate of dinner that he made for me sitting on the table. It almost broke my heart to tell him that I already ate. He just took my plate, put it all away and cleaned up the kitchen. What a sweet man, huh?

I just kissed and held him when I saw that. Especially after the experience I'd had that morning. I told him over and over again how lucky and blessed I felt that we were together. That lead to another one of those hours long talks about us. He loves to gush too. How cool is that? Sigh....

So, this is what it's like. I had no idea that *this* really existed. I'm starting to settle into the fact that I can expect this to be wonderful for many years to come. I sure must have done something right to be this lucky, ya know?

Yep, I'm madly in love with my husband. How wonderful is that?

My husband and I went to see my parents this weekend. He hasn't seen them since Christmas, and he wasn't even their son-in-law at that time. Lot's has happened since we have seen them (ummm, marriage for one). The drive to the coast is lovely and we chose a really cool place to stay.

I've had a long history of issues with my mother. I'd say the most descriptive word I could choose for my mother is "judgmental". Maybe I can thank her for the fact that I'm so non-judgmental. Maybe I wouldn't be this person I am today if she weren't so judgmental.

In the beginning, the visit wasn't so bad. My husband is so great. He's definately the guy any parent would love to have their daughter marry. Great manners, never swears (in front of my parents anyway!), polite, laughs at everyone's jokes. Yep, he's pretty darned perfect. We met them for breakfast, not too many problems, except for the fact that my mother waited almost 20 minutes to get a box to place her leftover 1.5 pancakes for their dog.

My husband, dad and brother decided to watch college football. I took a nap (2 hours!) and my mother was on her computer making a flyer for church. Her printer was acting up, so she kept calling my dad in to help her. Even though it's something I could have figured out in no time at all, I didn't offer to help. She didn't ask, and frankly I didn't want to be alone in a room with her.

We had dinner and she did another one of her annoying things. She has a problem if someone doesn't like what she likes. She just doesn't get it that people have different tastes. Example: she likes grapes on her salad.

She asked my husband: Do you like grapes?
Husband:yes
Mom: You should put grapes on your salad like me
Husband: I don't think I'd like that
Mom: You should try it
Husband: That's ok
Mom: you won't know if you like it if you don't try it
Grrrrr

Election talk:

Mom: So, did you vote?
Me: No, but guess what? We're both democrats... we cancel out yours and dad's vote (I was joking... but...)
Mom: (huffy) Anybody who would vote for John Kerry is stupid
Me: Let's not talk politics Mom
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Everyone goes back to what they were doing before dinner. Boys watching football, me playing solitaire on my phone, Mom complaining that her computer isn't working.

My mother calls my dad in every 10 minutes or so to come help her. The Hubs is looking at me because he knows full well that I could fix it. I try to ignore. REALLY, I didn't want to be alone with her!

Finally, I felt bad enough for my dad that I went in and saved the day. Yeah, I fixed everything. But, my payment? The following conversation:

Mom: I really need to talk to you about John Kerry
Me: I REALLY don't want to talk about this with you Mom
Mom: You can't just blindly vote democrat. This guy is scary and I need to tell you why
Me: Mom, I don't want to insult you, but (thinking in my head that I just didn't want to hear her judgmental slant on things, then thought better of it.) Let's change the subject.
Mom: So, you were telling me about the movie, "The Villiage" saying I'd like it. Why?
Me: Well, it's a villiage of people who lived in the puratanical days. No swearing, everyone respected their elders, no drinking, no smoking
Mom: Yeah, I'd like to live there
Me: (Here's where I should have kept my big yapper shut) I'd hate it. I'd be bored out of my mind.
Mom: Why?
Me: No stimulation.
Mom: Why, because people couldn't swear or drink? (ok, I'm paraphrasing, but that was the basic intent of her statement)
Me: No (arrrgh.... why didn't I keep my mouth shut?), it's because I'd have no internet. Besides, people weren't given choices.
Mom: I think the world should be like that. I don't like swearing. I don't like R rated movies (and on and on and on.) I don't like it that it lives in my brain for hours after I hear it.
Me: But Mom, you DO live in this world. You can choose to allow yourself to get upset when you hear these things, or choose to ignore it. I do not get upset be swearing unless people are swearing directly at me. It does not live in my brain. It goes in one ear and out the other.
Mom: That's just sad. It should bother you.
Me: I think you need to ignore it. I think you dwell on it too much. I think you wait for an opportunity to hear it so you can say something about it. (I can't believe I said that, even though I've been thinking it for YEARS. )

The conversation went downhill from there. Thankfully, I got her computer fixed in the nick of time and my hubby walked in saying he was tired and ready to go. Perfect timing, if you ask me.

Here's the love part:

I love my husband. He let me vent all the way to the hotel. He bought some wine. We drank it. We lit a fire in our room and just cuddled. He didn't say anything bad about my mother (good idea!)

And finally, the cop part:

On the way home today, we were speeding a bit. The Hubs looks in the rear view mirror. There he saw the flashing blue and reds. Yup. We were caught.

Cop: Are you in a hurry to get somewhere?
The Hubs: Nope
Cop: Well, I'm sure you were surprised to see me. Probably just as surprised as the mustang in front of you when you almost drove into his trunk
Lori: Mouth kept shut, even though I wanted to say, "Yeah, but that mustang had just cut us off!"
The Hubs: Silence
Cop: Well, do you think you should slow it down a little?
The Hubs: Yes, sir, I do
Cop: Ok, well, I'll just give you a warning. But you need to slow down
The Hubs: Yes sir. Thank you.

If it were me in the same scenario? I'd of made some bizzare story of why I was speeding, and I would have told the cop about the mustang cutting me off. And I would have cried and stuff. And, I probably would have received a ticket.

I married a smart man.